Insomnia
by Darcy Brandon
Summary: After yet another horrific case, a sleepless night leaves Munch reflecting. postNocturne. Oneshot.


**_A/N: please read and review! Thank you!_**

It was his job to protect his team. They were younger, more fragile, they always had been. He was the hard-as-nails cynic who dressed in black and came from Baltimore, or to them, practically another planet. He'd arrived that year, and he'd taken on a job as a Special Victims cop after twenty years of working in Homicide. He'd never thought he'd see more horrific things than in Homicide…he'd never known how cruel working with live victims could be. But he'd made up his mind when he first walked into the 16th precinct, after that first case. He'd already seen so much. He would try to take the brunt when he could. Sometimes, at night, he just didn't sleep. Visions from one horrific sex crime or another would flash through his head, or the words from witnesses or a judge or defense lawyer. He was used to it. In addition to all his tics and fears and paranoia, there was the occasional insomniac night. They were getting more frequent, as the workload seemed to get heavier.

He closed his eyes this night, and tried desperately to forget everything he knew, especially all that from the last couple of weeks, the most recent case.

The piano teacher, Holt, showed no emotion when they'd arrested him. His creepily vacant eyes were the first thing to appear in John's dream. The rest of him formed, as perverted as he'd seen in the tapes. Hundreds of tapes. In order to prove that the man had molested the hundreds of piano students on all those tapes, someone had had to watch all of nearly 200 tapes. Stabler and the others had bowed out after merely a handful. It was he, John, who had said he'd watch them. It sickened him, but someone had to do it.

No one had seen him, but he'd thrown up after the hours of sitting in front of that damned video screen. He didn't really believe in God, for the very reasons on those tapes, but at that moment, and so many times before it, and after it, with every case, he wished there was something that could cleanse the grime, cleanse the blackened charcoal stains that human iniquity had left behind.

He'd talked with Captain Cragen after the whole thing. Donnie was understanding, as always.

"You retired from Baltimore after twenty years in homicide, John…" His questions that followed still ran through Munch's head. Why _had _he come to Special Victims? Why wasn't he enjoying his retirement…why didn't he take the pension route? He had no answers. Only nightmares. His conversation with Elliot Stabler from that same day floated back into his mind as he sat in bed, trying to forget his dreams. It was one of those "What makes a perp a perp" conversations. Why had Holt molested all of those children? Was it learned? Was it inherent in his nature? Could it be unlearned? Munch had wanted to know _why. _But to Stabler, a perp was a perp and it didn't matter _why _they did it. They were guilty, and that's all that mattered.

Until the last tape.

The most incriminating tape had involved Holt and a seventeen year old, Evan, who'd gone to Holt for lessons since he was a young boy. An inner-city kid just like all the others. Holt had given him hope. Evan and the others had worshipped him. And it killed Evan to turn the man in, but he'd agreed to testify. Stabler had befriended him, gotten the kid to trust him, and now with his help, they were sure to get Holt put away for life. And the kid, Evan, had real talent. He could go far with his music and finally he'd have real hope.

And then that last tape. Munch almost couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. Holt, Evan and a younger boy. At Holt's demand, Evan did to the younger boy…what Holt had done to Evan and countless others. Even from the tape, Evan looked scared and unsure…in a trance, it seemed, at the hand of the piano teacher.

Now who was the victim? Who was the perp? How was a perp made? John had seen the questions swimming in Elliot Stabler's eyes when they told him what that last tape had held. How could a victim have done this? How could…the questions ran too far, too deep.

He closed his eyes, but by then the dawn was breaking through the bedroom window. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and got out of bed. It was time to go to work.


End file.
